The Song of the Winns (24 page)

“Well, we made it,” he said. “Just don't tell me that was the easy bit!”

Slippers Pink bit her lip and glanced up at the rocky peaks. “I guess we'll find out,” she said.

As he gazed along the chain of rocks, Alistair could discern the outline of a tower on one of the cliffs.

“There,” he said.

Slippers peered in the direction he was pointing. “Ah yes,” she said.

“What a horrible place to put prisoners,” Alistair burst out. “There's no food, no source of fresh water. It would be almost impossible for a boat to land except in perfect weather conditions. What if they run out of supplies?”

“The prisoners don't eat,” Slippers surmised grimly.

Alistair couldn't help wondering how his parents
would be changed by their years in this terrible place.

They picked their way carefully across rocks coated in slippery seaweed, trying to stay low, but Alistair knew it was impossible that they could approach the tower undetected; there was nowhere to hide, and his ginger fur was bound to make him conspicuous. Still, though Alistair watched nervously for the telltale flash of red that signified the presence of the Queen's Guards, he saw nothing, just the sparsely vegetated cliffs, the black slivers of rock, the deep blue sea and white foam of crashing waves. Gulls wheeled overhead—perhaps they were the lookouts? But they seemed immersed in their own business, and didn't show any apparent interest in the mice who warily approached a path cut into the cliff.

“This looks like the only way up,” Slippers observed as they stepped onto the narrow trail. “Which means it's likely to be the only way down, too.”

The path was so steep and winding that it was impossible to see more than a few meters ahead. Anyone waiting above them would have a clear advantage: one push and they would be plunged off the edge onto the rocks below. It was more than exertion from the climb that was making Alistair's breathing speed up as the path wound higher and higher.

About a quarter of the way up, Slippers called in a low voice, “There's another path joining this one. It looks like it goes back down to the rocks. You wait here, I'm going to see where it leads.” She disappeared down the second path, only to reappear a few minutes later. “The
good news is, there's a boat tied up down there,” she said. “Which gives us a way out of here.”

“What's the bad news?” said Alistair.

“There's a boat tied up down there,” she said. “Which means that even though we can't see them, there are definitely guards around here somewhere.”

But they'd seen no guards by the time they reached the top of the path, no guards yelled at them to halt as they ran across the small patch of grass between the path and the tower, and there were no guards blocking the prison's entrance.

Alistair was panting slightly as he began to climb the stairs behind Slippers Pink, but he barely noticed. His senses were on full alert, expecting to hear a cry of alarm at any moment as their presence was discovered. He tugged the ends of his scarf nervously, but all was silent as they passed the first-floor landing, and when they reached the second-floor landing too. Slippers held out a hand to stop him, then peeked cautiously around the edge of the doorway.

“Quiet as the grave,” she said when she drew her head back. Her whisper sounded loud in the stone chamber. “No sign of the Queen's Guards—or anyone else for that matter. This is strange,” she murmured uneasily. She reached behind her absently to smooth the fur on the back of her neck, then stepped through the doorway, beckoning to Alistair to follow.

They were standing at the end of a long corridor. One side was lined with heavy wooden doors, each with a small
barred window at about head height. The other side was a wall of rough-hewn stone with tiny openings every few paces to let light in. Even so, there was barely enough light to see by as they started down the corridor.

“Emmeline and Rebus should be in the seventh cell along,” Slippers said.

Alistair's pulse was racing now, and he wished that Slippers Pink would move faster. They were almost there! He was about to see his parents for the first time in four years!

“Even if they were being kept apart from other prisoners, you'd expect to at least see some of those other prisoners,” Slippers Pink muttered, almost to herself. She stopped at the door of the third cell, which was ajar. There was no one inside.

“Come on,” said Alistair impatiently. “They're just up here.”

He moved briskly up the corridor ahead of Slippers Pink. “Four . . . five . . .”

“Alistair,” Slippers called sharply, “wait for me.”

“Six . . . seven!”

The door to the seventh cell was closed, but when Alistair pushed at in frustration, it swung open. He darted inside, his whiskers trembling in anticipation.

The cell was empty. A square of light from a small barred window set high in the opposite wall fell on the bare stone floor, dimly illuminating the bare stone walls. A single metal cot was pushed against one wall. There was no sign of his parents, no sign of anyone. At first Alistair
simply stared in disbelief. His disappointment was like a great weight lodged in his chest, stopping him from breathing. He swallowed hard, feeling a lump rising in his throat. “Slippers,” he said in a small voice. He took a couple of steps backward. “Slip—”

There was a clang of metal and he spun around just as the cell door slammed shut.

16

Trouble in the Tulips

F
ive a.m. found Alice and Alex at Fiercely Jones's shed, bleary-eyed.

“Sleep well, did you? Straw pallets cozy enough for you, were they? Heh heh heh.” The gardener's mirthless chuckle suggested that he was not displeased at the notion of their discomfort. “I've got a job that will wake you right up, don't you worry.”

He led them 'round to the back of the shed, where they were greeted by the foulest stench ever to assault Alice's nose. Whatever it was, there was a pile of it that looked almost equal to the shed itself in size.

“What—what is it?” she choked out, after she regained her breath.

“Fertilizer,” said Fiercely Jones.

“Fertilizer?”

“Manure. And you're going to shovel it.” He pointed to two shovels. “Shift it.” He pointed to a wheelbarrow.
“Then spread it.” He flicked a thumb over his shoulder.

“Spread it where?” Alex gasped, holding his nose.

“On the two hundred and thirty-eight garden beds we'll be replanting.”

“Two hundred and thirty-eight garden beds?” Alex wheezed in disbelief.

“You can start on the tulips.”

A week passed, the days blurring into one another as each morning Alex and Alice rose just before dawn, spent a long day shoveling, shifting, and spreading manure, washed themselves under the cold-water pump in the courtyard, then presented themselves in the kitchen for a meager supper. Then, still hungry, they climbed the stairs to their sweltering attic room and fell onto the hard straw pallets. Alice usually slipped into a light doze until she heard the rustle of straw that meant her brother was about to go off on one of his raiding expeditions to the kitchen—often via some other part of the palace in search of information for FIG. Alice was too frightened to go exploring herself, though she did wonder whether it might in fact be less terrifying than lying awake, imagining scenarios in which Alex was discovered roaming by Lester, and imprisoned, or tortured . . . or worse. By the time he returned she was always a nervous wreck, too wound up to eat much, too tense to sleep.

On their eighth evening as servants of the palace, Alex returned to the attic with two hard-boiled eggs—he'd
heard someone approaching the kitchen and had had to leave before gathering anymore food. He also had some disturbing news.

At first Alice had trouble understanding the news, since her brother had stuffed the whole egg into his mouth in one go.

“There's someone in the dungeon?” she repeated, not sure she'd heard right.

Her brother nodded vigorously. “He looks pretty young, too,” he said, spraying flecks of yolk on Alice's fur.

“Alex, yuck,” she complained, brushing away the specks of yellow. “Who is he? Why is he there? Where did he come from?”

“Don't know, don't know, and don't know,” said Alex. “I didn't have a chance to ask. There was a guard down there with him—I had to scarper before he saw me. But I'd say he's Gerandan, since he's got orangey fur, and he can't have been there long, because I checked out the dungeon the night before last and he wasn't there then.”

Alice nibbled at her egg thoughtfully. “This could be important,” she said. “You should go back again tomorrow night and see if you can find out anything more.”

She finished her egg and lay back on her pallet, exhausted and still hungry. She was sure she'd never be able to sleep with the hunger pangs gnawing at her insides, but exhaustion won and she drifted off into a light doze. She dreamed she was crossing the border hidden inside a pile of manure. The manure was heaped on top of her and as fast as she tried to dig herself out it kept coming,
filling her nose and mouth so that she couldn't breathe. She woke gasping for breath, and saw that the moon had barely shifted in the sky. She'd probably only been asleep for a few minutes. She gazed out the small window and thought about the prisoner in the dungeon. Had he been caught stealing food, perhaps? Or said something bad about Souris and a Queen's Guard had overheard? Or maybe he was a spy, like them. . . . Alice didn't get back to sleep that night.

By the next day, her senses were dulled from lack of food and sleep, so that it was something of a relief to be working alone with Alex in the garden at some distance from the palace, with no need to act the part of Rita or remember their cover story. But her relief was replaced with apprehension when, that afternoon, a trio of mice strode across the grass. Alice recognized Fiercely Jones, of course, and the odious Lester, but the third was a mouse she'd never met before. His fur sprang from his body in short gray bristles, and he was wearing a dark blue coat with gold buttons. His boots were the tallest and shiniest Alice had ever seen.

“Where are you up to with these flowerbeds, Jones?” the gray mouse demanded in a high voice. “We don't have much time, you know.”

“Coming along, General, coming along,” said the gardener. “Least I've got some help at last.”